Love does not hurt.  How many times do you have to hear that before you really understand it?  During college, I voluteered at a safe house for battered women for a year,helping women and kids hide from thier abusive relationships and coming into a safe place to build a new life.  I remember families of all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds being housed together for safety.  I remember driving to San Francisco to try to help a woman and her 2 kids flee an abusive relationship.  I remember spending Easter with the kids…or taking them to a movie to give them joy in such a dark time…and to give mom a much needed break.  I remember the woman who was shot in the face with a BB gun because the husband wanted to teach her a lesson…and I remember her going back to that same man.  It’s a dance, the cycle of violence.  When are women going to decide they are tired of the dance…and that they deserve to hear different music?  I hope that this Lifeclass lesson brings someone closer out of the darkness…and in to understanding that love doesn’t hurt…EVER EVER EVER.  Love. Doesn’t. Hurt.  Here are the notes from the class.

• Case Study: Oprah’s own shared lesson – Looking for love and self worth and value…looking for validation from someone else.  Oprah shares her own lesson of when the man left, slamming the door on her hand and falling to the floor, realizing that she had become the woman who she never imagined that she would be  – the only difference was that she was battered in spirit…the next step, who knows…
• People who love you don’t treat you badly.
• Case Study: What you say to your kids, changes who they are: Esther and Alicia – How do you talk to your kids?  In 2002, TOWS profiled a mom who says she’s a bad mom.   Yelling, rejection, anger, calling her child names.  All passed down from her own mom.  Dr. Phil offers some understanding and help.  “This is a silent epidimic…these parents are shaping who these kids are…”
• What you do to your child in anger changes who they are.
• You can’t unring a bell.  It takes 100 praises to erase 1 negative thing said.
• Hyper-critisism, from someone who claims they love you, is really their way of mirroring their own discontent in their own lives.
• Lesson: Your anger changes your child’s sense of identity, worth and value.
• Love does not hurt.  Mentally it doesn’t hurt.  Emotionally it doesn’t hurt.  Physically it doesn’t hurt.
• Case Study: 2007 Susan Still – Domestic Violence Survivor. Her husband had her 13 year old son forced to video tape the 1 hour of verbal, emotional and physical abuse.  He also made her 8 year old son watch.  Oprah tells us – For every woman who have ever thought that I am staying  because I want to make it ok for my children, the damage to your children emtionally and spiritually even though your children may never get hit – the damage to them doesn’t even begin to compare to whatever your emtional or physical damage it. When Oprah interviewed her youngest son, he said he didn’t realize it was abuse…it was just regular life.  He foreced his kids to call her “white hoe slut” and just followed his orders.  When Oprah asked him, “Did you ever think about how she was feeling?  that it might embarrass or hurt her?”  “No…I thought that it was fine, ok.  It was regular…,” he said.  “Do not stay because I know that they think they want them to grow up in a healthy home with both thier parents…but it’s not healthy…it would be a horrible idea to stay.”
• Lesson:  Witnessing abuse causes damage to your children’t that cannot be undone.
• Love feels good, warm, a safe place to be.  The exact opposite of being hurt.
• Lesson:  If you allow yourself and your children to remain in harm’s way, it’s because you have no love for yourself.
• Lesson:  Find a way to open enough heart space to let in love for yourself.  You have to love yourself enough to protect yourself and not allow yourself to be hurt.
• 1 in 3 teen girls are abused either phyically, emotionally or mentally.  Teen abuse is worse that with adult women.
• Case Study:  Teen Girls – In 2005, TOWS covered a show on teen girls being abused.  Think about it.  Look at the behavior and think about it.  Our perception of what love is is distored…because people being critical and treating you badly is not ok.  This is not love.  Love doesn’t feel bad…at all…ever.
• Lesson:  People treating you badly, being disrespectful and critical, is not real love.
• Case Study:  Getting over hurt – In 2000, Jamie and Jody and forgiveness from an affair.  How do you make your heart less hardened from someone who has hurt you?  Dr. Phil tells them to LOOK each other in the eyes.  Don’t break that gaze. Think about what’s happened in the relationship.  Do you know what you’ve done?  Do you feel that hurt? Give your feelings a voice.  Tell them how it made you feel.  How do you feel?  Why should they take the risk of letting you back in?  Can you believe enough to take the risk to let them in?
• Dr. Phil Lesson:  Anytime someone’s been violated, it’s always about how can you feel safe enough to let them back in.   Realizing trust comes from knowing you can handle what they do, not in knowing you can predict what they will do.  The amount we trust is knowing how strong we are and knowing we can handle our partner’s imperfections.  “I’ll get through it.  I’m betting on me, not them.”  Believe in Yourself.
• Lesson:  If you learn to trust yourself enough, you can cope with anything other people do.
• When you trust yourself,  you don’t tollerate chroic betrayal.
• If anybody is doing anything to dishonor you, then that is not love.
• What does love look and feel like for you?  Think about it.  What is your vision?  And does it match the reality of what is going on in your life?